SeeingRed [he/him]

Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing Microtopia which is a game about ants that are microprocessors/mechanical. It is a factory simulator, but the base components are the ants and production buildings.

The ants have a lifespan, so you are managing them as a resources that is also required to make more of themselves. And there are not any belts or inserters as in most games, but instead the ants act as the logistics system, the resource gathering system, and the productive system.

It’s a slightly fresh take on the genre, and it was fun to learn the novel systems. However, it really could use some QOL and some options for lower graphics settings.

These sorts of games are fun for me because they allow me to solve small problems that slowly lead to complex systems. I really enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from building something complex like this.

I’m in a similar boat. I ended up getting rid of my car and a bunch of other expenses that were not bringing me joy and were a drain on me. As a result, I’ve been able to save a lot as a bulwark against the need to constantly perform. It doesn’t help though, because I still need to go to a place I don’t want to be for too many hours per day. It’s not like I could survive indefinitely if I stop working.

I would like to have a kid, but can’t afford to. My wife also is trying to get her career off the ground and so we are not really in the best position. I’m well off enough for our current life, but if we move to a bigger space and have to start paying for all that is required, the math doesn’t math anymore.

Maybe in a few years we’ll reconsider before we are too old

It really is like this. I have a friend who’s family grew up in the Soviet Union, and left during the collapse (he was born after). He is vehemently against Communism, but he’s also strongly against capitalism. It’s a bit frustrating to talk with him because he’ll agree with me right up until I start to talk strategy or historical context around the Soviet Union.

I always find it silly how humanoid robots almost never turn in a way that looks easy. They do a small shuffle and it takes multiple steps to turn 90 degrees.

I guessing that it’s not a trivial problem to solve. Or maybe there are hardware limitations that don’t allow human like movements. Like, maybe the hip and leg sockets are not able to make certain motions. Otherwise, it’s something that could easily be solved through reinforcement learning. Maybe it’s just never been a priority either.

I know that from an economic perspective, having a robot that can do a human task slowly but for less than it takes to hire a human for a proportional amount of time makes sense. And if we want to reduce mundane human working hours under socialism, it makes sense to build these sorts of robots. Especially as their abilities increase (more dexterity, better sensors, better software, etc.). Right now they feel super gimicky, but I can see the potential.

That bit at the end where the one bot charged the other bot was kind of cute.

What is this even supposed to mean!? I guess the reader needs to only see Russia as some mythologized evil to make that sentence make sense with the rest of the article.

I definitely get that. I was somehow able to get through it because it was what I was focused on at the time, and it still took me a while.

It really is worth reading. To make it easier, I suggest a reading group, or a reading companion podcast, or the audio version.

This has truely been a wonderful thing to see. I do wonder about what actions will be taken by the west in response to this.

At least 小红书 seems to be in the position that they want to allow the western users to keep using their platform non-region locked.

Does Germany have centrifuges to refine uranium for power plants still? They may be refining and selling to other countries. This could be a response to the recent reduction in natural gas supply from Russia.

This could be for bombs, but it could also just be capital taking advantage of new conditions.

I’m the same way, and have a friend with a good memory. Every time we meet up he talks about all the DnD games we played and different things we had done in the past and I only really remember, like, half of it.

I’ve kept journals in the past, but I rarely stick to it. It’s interesting to return to those after a while.

That’s true, on a non human timescale the progress is nearly impossible to predict, especially with novel technology. For example, when space travel was an early concept, we thought travelling the stars was a forgone conclusion. We now know that any exploration in that front will be locked behind either breakthrough science or will be limited to slow generation ships, or robotic exploration.

That a technology capable of producing human level intelligence, or beyond does feel like a certainty since there is no reason to believe that the process of intelligent thought is limited to a biological substrate. We haven’t discovered any fundamental physical laws that stop us from doing this yet. Key issues to solve beyond the hardware problem come into effect with alignment, understanding the key fundamentals of consciousness and intelligence, understanding different types of minds beyond those of humans, and better understandings of emergent phenomena. But these areas will be explored in sufficient detail to yield an answer within time.

I will have to read these other books, I’m definitely interested in picking up some more good books.

We definitely have a series of breakthroughs needed before I can see any possibility of human consciousness uploads, to say nothing of the resources required to simulate that intelligence. Any simulation of intelligence requires resources, it may be plausible that we can bring the resources required below the resources for keeping a human alive. That being said, I’m not sure it’s the only logical progression of technology.

I’m partial to the concept of artificial realities presented in the “Culture” book series.

In that series, the biological population in the “Culture society” is well educated, truly free and provided anything they could want by purpose built extremely compassionate AI. Then simulated world’s are primarily an afterlife or an alternative to the physical world.

They also had artificial intelligence and uploaded biological intelligence interact with the physical world through robotic presences.

There were some interesting concepts that came out of that, like highly religious societies producing horrific “Hell” afterlife when they realized that metaphysical afterlifes were not experimentally verifiable.

I had issues with some of the takes of the author, but it was an interesting read.

Oh nice! I wouldn’t mind a re-read of it before jumping into volume 2. Especially if the language is easier to follow. Even just a re-read of some key chapters.

It’s so frustrating to read anything about IMF loans because most summaries are all euphemistic economic jargon. Then you read past the summary and while the material is still opaque, they’ll have snippets where they explain in plain language what they want.

I assume this is an attempt to re-shore manufacturing, especially if as many of us expect, many countries choose to take the tarrif hit so that they can keep trading in their own currency between eachother.

It’s a strategic bet, bring home some manufacturing while hurting those who defy the empire. It’ll certainly reduce the availability of certain goods in the US as countries choose other markets. This likely would help to encourage some level of reshoring, or at least increase pressure from the ruling class to force more coups of other countries to force them back onto the dollar system.

Whether this will backfire or not will is something that is very hard to predict.

This is definitely good news. It’s too bad they didn’t go as far as Cuba on their most recent rewrite of family law, but I’m glad things are moving in the right direction.

I hope Didi gains custody of her son soon enough, that will also be a win when it happens.

This was certainly something. Many points were just horrible, but there was a sprinkle of good positions.

My takeaway was they seek to be connected with both west and east, which probably means connecting to the BRI. Improvements to employment (full employment?) and cost of living are also on the table. They recognize that America, and the west more generally is on the decline and that there is effectively no leadership in that space.

The far right wing screed against LGBTQ and immigration was really horrible to read. Just goes to show that the western culture of hate is alive and well. I’m sure there was more horrible stuff that they said, but I only skimmed the majority of the headings after I got through the first fee sections.

The fact that they are centering companies in their plan seems like a bad idea unless they plan to nationalize key industry (doubt). Maybe someone more well read could speak more to their actual plan here. We know that capital generally will reject full employment unless it is forced to do so. So they have contradictory goals. That being said, contradiction can obviously be managed if it is understood and there is sufficient power/will to do so.

Same concept could apply to lots of things. Even something like theory. We should understand the basics, and then read that which is relevant or interesting to us. Having a backlog creates anxiety if you feel obligated to complete it. Keeping track of what you have done and how you felt about it (or even more detailed notes as should be done with theory) sounds like a really good way to make something more engaging and a better way to have sustainable motivation.

Definitely doesn’t apply to other things like work or household chores. You need to complete all the items on the to-do list for those, though items can usually be post-poned or shared with others in the event of time and resource constraints.

I’m definitely curious about the self cleaning property, and how easily it is to produce (is the process sustainable, toxic, expensive reagents, etc.) That was the biggest issue with a lot of the previous radiative cooling surfaces. If I have time I’ll try to read into it more.

There was a neat video on how to make your own from readily available material, but not from cellulose, but it had issues with being clean and application onto surfaces. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDRnEm-B3AI&t=1s

The labour aristocracy is a real problem for any western nation. The need for the party to meaningfully oppose NATO and the ongoing french economic empire are at direct odds with the material conditions of a large portion of the working class. If they stop benefitting from super profits, then the material conditions will go down relatively speaking, if nothing else in the society changed. There would need to be a multi pronged approach so as to accomplish this goal while preserving conditions for the worst off in society (e.g. reducing the wealth share of the bourgeoisie, elimination of unnecessary wealth drains like advertising and NATO expenditure, etc.).

This is not to say the contradiction is unsolvable, just that it is something that needs to be seriously contended with in any given western socialist movement. SD in the core will always need to rely on exploitation of the periphery unless they meaningfully and intentionally provide reparations and develop their own economy to assist in those reparations.

Since I am not French or well versed in this particular left coalition, I don’t know if it has the teeth or the will to do this.